Om Sweet Om

The Rubin Museum screens The Bhagavad Gita

sheetal — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:10:50 +0000

Yesterday, I attended a screening of a documentary entitled The Bhagavad Gita at the Rubin Museum in NYC. Perhaps it's the years of reading distorted descriptions about Hinduism and its texts that tend to make me weary of these types of efforts, but I decided to hop on the subway and view the documentary. Plus, I also had an inkling that this documentary was going to be different because my friend, Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, the Hindu Chaplain at NYU and Columbia, was a speaker in the...

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Comments from India on yoga in the West

sheetal — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:58:42 +0000

Acknowledging the "outpouring of criticism" the Broad yoga piece received, the New York Times' India blog published a nice blurb earlier today, taking stock of some of the reactions in India to yoga in the West. The last quote by Nivedita Joshi is spot on: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/the-great-yoga-divide/?src=rechp...

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How Poor Analysis Can Wreck Your Yoga

sheetal — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:20:41 +0000

I’d like to thank the The New York Times for continuing to fuel the relevancy of the Hindu American Foundation’s Take Back Yoga campaign. The latest piece in the Times Magazine, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” by William Broad, just adds more fodder to the campaign. Broad’s latest has naturally upset many...

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Hindus, bindis, and cows in a car in Buenos Aires

sheetal — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:25:37 +0000

I recently returned from an amazing five days in sunny Buenos Aires. Both the city and its denizens are charming, warm, and welcoming. As my husband and I strolled through the various neighborhoods, we found that Buenos Aires magically blended the best of Paris, Barcelona, Athens, and Mumbai. In addition to trying some fabulous bottles of Malbec and some not so fabulous “Fernet Branca con Coca-cola,” I had the opportunity to test out the remnants of my rusty Spanish skills. By the...

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CNN rings in 2012 with faith-based predictions

sheetal — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:35:16 +0000

The belief blog on CNN rang in the new year with 15 concise, faith-based predictions for 2012. My prediction for Hindu Americans is #12 on the list: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/01/12-faith-based-predictions-for-2012/. Enjoy!...

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Leaving Lululemon behind

sheetal — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:57:32 +0000

I never bought into the Lululemon fan club. Granted, they do have some rather stylish workout and yoga attire. But by the end of my seven mile run, hour training session, or 90 minute Ashtanga class, no amount of Lululemon is going to make me look stylish. Plus, something about $100 butt shaping yoga pants just didn’t seem to gel with my idea of yoga. It just seemed counter-intuitive to be worried about the shape of my butt while practicing a Hindu practice aimed at calming the...

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Yoga teachers and trainers: Essential, but not interchangeable

sheetal — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:21:00 +0000

Just before Thanksgiving - and barely one year shy of its front page story on the Hindu American Foundation’s Take Back Yoga campaign - the New York Times ran a piece, “Yoga Addict’s New Mantra:...

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Karma: Beyond “bad things happening to good people”

sheetal — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:30:17 +0000

Karma is a concept that has always fascinated me. It's complex, thought-provoking, and essential to Hinduism. Yet it is a term that has been "dumbed" down over the years as it has entered everyday jargon. And more recently, "karma, baby" tends to be casually thrown out as a reason or explanation when something "bad" happens to a person. But the concept of karma is far more complex than that, and does not only apply to cases where "bad things" happen to good people. At the Hindu...

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Diwali and Dessert

sheetal — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:34:25 +0000

Hindus around the world are in the midst of celebrating Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights. I began receiving “Happy Diwali” emails and messages two days ago from friends and family members across the globe. The message of Diwali - victory of good over evil, the illumination of knowledge over the darkness of ignorance - is a message that can be understood and shared by all, regardless of race, religion, or creed. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why the Read the full post here »

Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga

sheetal — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:13:54 +0000

I’m a fan of Maureen Dowd’s column in the New York Times - her writing is pleasingly quirky and relevant. Needless to say, I was intrigued when a friend forwarded her latest piece, which was provocatively titled “How Garbo Learned to Stand on her Head.” It started out well enough - yoga as a stress reliever.But by the end of it, I was, well, stressed!...

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